


Underneath grey clouds

by DecayingLiberty



Series: Dust and Shadow [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 01:48:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15062405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DecayingLiberty/pseuds/DecayingLiberty
Summary: Éponine looks for memories.





	Underneath grey clouds

It has never been a plan exactly but then again, Éponine has never been good at planning, so who knows how it would have turned out if someone more organized did what Éponine is doing now. Which is... well, she is not entirely sure what she is doing but she knows that she is supposed to be here. There is a call of some sort, some magic tug that pulls her here.

Éponine knows exactly where she is. She may not know how to get back to her apartment — and that is a problem that she will figure out when she gets there — but she knows where she is because she has walked these streets before, has known these buildings, has known every nook and cranny and every road, every alley. She has been before but it is different now. She supposes that even a city as old as Paris changes within two hundred years.

She is looking for answers. The memories come at strange times, feelings first and images second, and they come incomplete and patchy, and Éponine can only sometimes understand them. The memories of before are confusing but she is trying to piece them together bit by bit, trying to make sense of the images and the feelings and it is like assembling a puzzle with only a percentage of the pieces, scraps of colours and shapes that hover in empty space, unconnected and nonsensical.

She is not the only one to remember. Two hundreds years later, they still have found each other, still have bonded over politics and drinks and laughter. Not all of them have their memories intact but for those who do, it is strange in a painful kind of way. Sometimes they work like a well oiled machine, moving in sync without much thought, because of course Joly, Bossuet and Grantaire will be found having breakfast together and of course Combeferre and Courfeyrac organize their little activist group with Enjolras at the front. They do not question those things that come so naturally to them.

Yet sometimes when she reaches for Cosette — dear lovely Cosette who does not remember —and Cosette smiles at her like she is the most beautiful sight she has ever seen, she stops and stumbles over feelings that she is not supposed to have, memories that are not hers, and it makes it difficult for her to remember that she is not Éponine from two hundred years ago but Éponine living in the 21st century with Cosette, her brother and the friends she has made along the way.

The streets tell a different tale than they used to but they are the same somehow. Éponine knows that in the burger shop, there is another room far back and when she takes some turns away from it, she is standing in that street again, a street she remembers well, despite it having changed, despite it not being her memories exactly.

The stones under her soles feel different, smoother and less wobbly, but she can recall it still. The memory of this street is the most vibrant, most complete in her mind. She follows the footsteps of the girl from two hundred years ago, younger than she is now, counting the stones and steps until she reaches... well, until her past self reaches the barricade and climbs through it, but her present self is staring at an empty street. And still she hears them, the soldiers shouting commands and the students passing bayonets and gunpowder, how they scramble around, looking for a secure hold, looking for injured comrades and trying desperately to hold everything together.

And suddenly, there is pain in her stomach. She remembers this, remember how the bullet has pierced her abdomen, hot and cold at the same time but the pain has never been so intense, never so overwhelming. This is new and unknown and she is convinced that she is dying, and there is no one this time, no one to hold her. She drags herself to the next house and leans heavily against it, heart beating wild as she tries to calm herself, tries to breathe through the bullet in her stomach, of which she knows that logically there are none.

Tears gather at her eyes because the feelings are too much, the memories are too much. It has been a bad idea to come here, she sees it now, and she wants to be gone from this street but she neither has the energy to walk nor does she know which way.

With shaking hands she pulls out her phone and dials the first number on the list.

“Hello?” says a sweet voice and Éponine would recognize it anywhere, in any time. She laughs in relief. “’Ponine?”

“Please come get me.” Her breathing is laboured now and she knows it sounds bad, and she feels awful but it is hard to convince herself that it is not real.

“Are you hurt?”

“Yes — no. It hurts.”

“Where are you?”

Éponine does not know where she is. She cannot see the sign and even if she did, she does not know which sign is the right one because the memories blur and smudge and flicker in her mind and Éponine simply cannot focus. She only knows that she is hurting and there is plastic in her hand and Cosette is talking to her from far far away.

“Barricade,” she says because that is all that makes sense to her. The street, this street, she knows this street. “I’m at the barricade.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Please, Cosette, I don’t want to—”

“Okay, listen, ‘Ponine, you need to listen to me, okay?”

And Éponine nods, because of course, she will listen, she will do anything for Cosette.

“Turn on the GPS of your phone, can you do that?”

Éponine does as she was told.

“Thank you.” There is movement on the other side. “Now, tell me what you see.”

“I see—” She sees many things. She sees cannons and bayonets and splintered wood. She sees smoke and fire, and street lamps and windows and junction boxes. She sees her father’s inn.

“Cosette, Cosette,” she says instead, “I remember.”

“Remember what?”

“Before.” Éponine laughs because how can Cosette not remember. “We were children, Cosette. Maman always made me soup and she bought me a doll, and I had sister, Cosette, a little sister!” She remembers this time, remember how she was happy and carefree with her sister and her parents and Cosette.

The tears are overflowing now and she sobs because she remembers the rest, too. “And I was mean to you, Cosette, but then this man came and took you away and we didn’t have money and we came to Paris, oh, Cosette, Cosette, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Éponine, it’s different now.”

“No, you don’t understand, I  — ”

“We are almost there, can you hold on for little bit longer?”

“I’m scared.”

“I know, it’s okay, you will b—”

The phone vibrates once in her hand and then, it goes completely black.

“Cosette? No, no, no, please, Cosette!”

Panic rises in her, and she is sure that she is dying, she sure that she will die here, only this time she will be alone and Cosette will never forgive her.

Above, the sky is dark blue, almost black with specks of grey where heavy clouds obscure the few stars that still dare to shine against the city lights.

It is just how she remembers it.

Soft rain drips against her face. Éponine has always hated rain. Rain makes her clothes cling to to her body, makes it uncomfortable to move and it makes her cold, leaves her shivering, even if she is wearing layers of layers underneath. And now Éponine knows that the rain is right to be here because this situation has happened before, Éponine has been here before. She closes her eyes.

A car pulls up in front of her, or maybe it is a carriage? She is not sure but it is heavy and big and loud and it rumbles the ground underneath her feet and hands. There is a sweet voice calling her, there is someone shaking her.

She opens her eyes again.

“Cosette,” she says, “can you forgive me?” And her voice is like it was before, rough and hoarse and old, and her words are old, too, and they do not fit, but it sounds right.

“Yes, yes, of course, there’s nothing forgive. Come here.” And Cosette lifts her up and guides her to the car, bright red and glaring, even in the darkness of the night. Éponine is still hurting but the pain is not real, and Cosette is soft and warm and comforting, so she clings to her a bit tighter.

“I did terrible things to you,” Éponine says.

“Not to me, never.”

“But before.” Éponine looks at Cosette, really looks, and this Cosette is different than back then.

“You’re not her. It’s past. You are ‘Ponine born in the 20th century, living in the 21st,” says Cosette as she climbs into the back-seat with her.

Cosette’s image flickers. There is Cosette with light brown hair and flowers in it, smiling brightly and fleetingly, with heavy colliers and shiny earrings. And then there is Cosette, her Cosette, short hair in blond and pink, dressed in a shirt that Éponine vaguely remembers buying for herself, and Éponine reaches out to touch her, to make sure that she is real.

Cosette is warm against her fingertips, with a worried frown creasing the part between her eyes and Éponine moves to smooth it out.

“You’re here.”

“Yes,” Cosette says and grabs Éponine’s wandering hand to press a kiss into her palm. “I’m here, and you’re here with me. We are going home now, okay?”

And Éponine is still shaking, still cold, still high from the rush, but the phantom pain is fading and the images stop flickering and the shouts stop echoing in her ears.

“Okay,” Éponine answers.

She has Cosette close to her, and she keeps looking at the pink and blond hair, again and again, until she is sure that Cosette is okay, that she has never done terrible things to her, and until she knows again with certainty that she is Éponine Jondrette, living in the 21st century.

**Author's Note:**

> Say "hi" on my [tumblr](https://decayingliberty.tumblr.com)! ^_^


End file.
